I really want to learn more about why it is that people are so divided on this issue. I mean it's pretty easy to find examples of it, but why? Why is this such a unreconcilable difference of opinions? I mean shouldn't this be verifiable one way or another?

It's fascinating to watch.

Well I'm not sure that you could because you haven't, so the answer to my first two questions is "no".

But here, let's look at multiple sources and where I can find cost of living information and adjust income with that:

With income adjusted by COL (where possible)

|Source|Median Annual Income for Trade Workers | |:-|:-| |BLS|N/A| |Census Bureau|$56,464 (as of 2019, adjusted for cost of living using the CPI-U-RS) | |Glassdoor|N/A| |Payscale|$60,015 (as of February 2023, adjusted for cost of living using PayScale's Cost of Living Calculator)| |Economic Policy Institute|$70,000 (as of 2021, adjusted for cost of living using the CPI-U-RS) |

​

Unadjusted income

|Source|Median Annual Income for Trade Workers | |:-|:-| |BLS|$44,840 (as of May 2020) | |Census Bureau|$45,555 (as of 2019) | |Glassdoor|$47,171 (as of February 2023) | |Payscale|$50,331 (as of February 2023) | |Economic Policy Institute|$54,000 (as of 2021) |

​

I mean, what can I say? 50% of trade workers are estimated to make less than these numbers and that number only increases as salary increases, and even after adjusting for COL the vast majority of individuals are making <$100k with many making less than half that. It wouldn't be that way if it were easy.

Yes cost of living affects pay, but not nearly enough to support your claim. Union members also tend to make more, but most people aren't in unions or benefitting from them (though I wouldn't argue with changing that). These are again just some examples I could find quickly.

• From BLS, the union membership rate for all occupations in the United States was 10.3% in 2021. This includes both trade and non-trade workers.
  • The BLS also provides data on union membership rates for specific occupations. For example, as of 2021, the union membership rate for construction and extraction occupations (which includes many trade workers) was 12.9%.
• From EPI, the union membership rate for construction workers specifically was 13.5% in 2020. This is slightly higher than the overall union membership rate for all construction and extraction occupations reported by the BLS.
  • The EPI also reports that the union membership rate for production and transportation workers, which includes some trade workers, was 15.4% in 2020.

So even if we assume these numbers are off, I think it's fair to say that <20% of trade workers are unionized. This certainly helps them, but it doesn't apply to most people.

Have I been able to make solid enough arguments and give enough evidence from a variety of sources to change your mind? Maybe you happen to make $100k+ working in a trade and the other people you work with or know in the trade are also doing similarly well. If that's the case, it makes sense that you'd extrapolate that most people who do a similar kind of job (e.g., trade work) would probably have a similar outcome to yourself. It's just in this case you'd be wrong specifically because you and your immediate circle of reference are all outliers. Like, I'm not trying to sway you on some political point here, I'm just trying to present the actual numbers.

There you go.

Either use it to bring down expenses for everyone

or

use it to maximize profits for a select few.

It's only a threat in one of those situations. In the other it's a blessing. People argue about which outcome goes with which option, which is confusing to me but not surprising.

Can you provide any evidence to support your claim other than your own personal experience? And can you provide any evidence that would suggest that the information I supplied is incorrect or misleading? Because the BLS is completely transparent with their methodologies; they provide multiple sources on their website that details this in pretty excruciating detail.

Because if not, it seems like you just want to prop up a narrative that fits your worldview and not necessarily reality. I'd be happy to consider contradicting data if you can provide it but if you can't, I'm going to stick to the data that I do have considering it's the best (only) data that's been offered so far.

It's also a super easy google search to show that blue collar jobs make a median annual income of $39,850 so I'm not sure what the $100k comment is about.

Actually, as an afterthought, I have a question that I should probably ask. I promise I'm not meaning this in a rude way but do you understand what mean (aka average) and median actually indicate? I made an assumption that you did but that wasn't necessarily a fair assumption on my part.

Those data are about as conclusive as you can get. The US gov carefully and methodically tracks this specific kind of data because the US gov values having an accurate read on various aspects of the economy with earnings being a huge part of that. You can check out more about the BLS here and here if you'd like.

The claims you are making are purely anecdotal. The data I'm referencing come from researchers who are trained in the proper research methods and statistics and are provided with the resources needed to collect huge amounts of information.

Of the thousands of people in these trades, you would expect that a small proportion of them do make $100,000+ and that's what you find. But it not the norm, nor is it even close to being common.

For example, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the median annual wage for electricians was $56,180 as of May 2020. This means that half of all electricians earned more than this amount, and half earned less.Assuming a normal distribution of electrician wages, an electrician earning $100,000 would be in the top 10-15% of all electricians in terms of income.

However, income is notoriously positively skewed meaning that this 10-15% number is actually likely to be much much lower. But even if it weren't, I'd say that 15 out of 100 people being able to earn $100,000+ in a trade job does not constitute it as being "easy".

Also:

>Most of those annual wages = sub $30/hr pay
>
>Union Millwrights, Electricians, Pipefitters etc are all well over $30/hr here and we’re south of the Mason Dixon line.
>
>If you go a few hours north those same trades pay $40-50+ per hour.

Assuming one works 2080 hours per year (i.e., 52 weeks * 40 hours/week), they'd make the following before taxes in a year while being paid at a rate of:

$20 - $41,600

$30 - $62,400

$40 - $83,200

$50 - $104,000

So no, I'll finish by reiterating that it is in fact not easy to make $100k+ whether you're in a trade job or not considering that the vast majority of people will never make this much. You and anyone else can check up on the data I used on bls.gov. Here's an example of all of the kinds of data they have for electricians: https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes472111.htm. They have thousands of different jobs that they track that you can examine for free just by searching for it.

Edit: fixed quotation mistake

Some people can, most cannot. This isn't a comment about the worker's merit, it's just the empirical reality seeing how the vast majority of trade workers are far from 6 figures. Here's just some examples of median wages for some common trade jobs based on data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) as of May 2020:

• Electricians: $56,900

• Mechanics: $44,050 (automotive service technicians and mechanics)

• HVAC servicers: $51,420 (heating, air conditioning, and refrigeration mechanics and installers)

• Carpenters: $49,520

• Architects: $87,180

• Boilermakers: $65,360

• Millwrights: $59,080

• Plumbers: $55,160 (plumbers, pipefitters, and steamfitters)

• Welders: $44,190 (welders, cutters, solderers, and brazers)

These are just some quick examples I could find with numbers attached. Certainly even within these fields some individuals make $100,000+, but these stats show that it is certainly not the norm and therefore shouldn't be described as "easy" to achieve.

And just for the sake of clarity, I want to reemphasize that I'm using the median here, i.e., the value separating the bottom 50% of earners from the top 50%. As such, half of all of the trade workers in these occupations make less than the value I provided.

I think the real question is, once we automate enough tasks such that there won't be enough "good jobs" for people to build a career out of, are we going to support them so that they may thrive without the need for income generated by their work or will we treat them like we do anyone else who is no longer able to generate a profit?

You really only need to be worried about automation in one of those scenarios.

I think the main concern here is how astronomically positively skewed average income is. Because of this median and mean are going to differ considerably but the median will more closely represent more people.

Also, if they have the data to calculate average individual income they necessarily have the data to calculate median individual income (because they are the same data).

Edit: typo

Ok now do racial by gender.

That seems to be an important detail here that was left out.

That seems to be an important detail here that was left out.